No pies. The great Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov. "For the benefit of the army on the battlefield"
Childhood and youth
Pirogov Nikolai Ivanovich was born in Moscow, he was from the family of a treasury official. Education took place at home. As a child, he noticed a penchant for medical science. A friend of the family, who was known as a good doctor and professor at Moscow University, E. Mukhin, helped to get an education. He drew attention to the boy's penchant for medical science and began to study with him personally.
Education
At the age of 14, the boy enters the medical department of Moscow University. In parallel, Pirogov settles down and works at the anatomical theater. After defending his thesis, he worked abroad for several more years.
Nikolai Pirogov was the best in academic performance, graduating from the university. In order to prepare for the activities of a professor, he goes to the Yuryev University of Tartu. At that time it was the best university in Russia. At the age of 26, the young doctor-scientist defended his dissertation and became a professor of surgery.
Life abroad
Nikolai Ivanovich went to study in Berlin for some time. There he was known for his dissertation, which was translated into German.
Prigov falls seriously ill on his way home and decides to stay in Riga for medical treatment. Riga was lucky because it made the city a platform for recognizing his talent. As soon as Nikolai Pirogov recovered, he decided to perform operations again. Before that, and before, there were rumors in the city about a successful young doctor. The next step was confirmation of his status.
Moving to Pirogov in St. Petersburg
After some time, he arrives in St. Petersburg, and there he becomes the head of the Department of Surgery at the Medico-Surgical Academy. At the same time, Nikolai Ivanovich Prigov was engaged in the Clinic of Hospital Surgery. Since he trained the military, it was also in his interest to learn new surgical techniques. Thanks to this, the possibility of operations with minimal injury to the patient appeared.
Later, Pirogov went to the Caucasus to join the army, because he needed to check the operational methods that had been developed. In the Caucasus, for the first time, bandage dressing impregnated with starch is used.
Crimean War
The leading merit of Pirogov is the possibility of introducing a completely new method of caring for the wounded in Sevastopol. The method included the fact that the wounded were carefully selected already at the first point of care: the more severe the wounds, the sooner they would perform operations, and if the wounds were light, they could be sent for treatment to stationary hospitals in the country. The scientist is deservedly considered the founder of military surgery.
last years of life
He became the founder of a free hospital on his small estate Cherry. He left there only for a while, including in order to give lectures. In 1881, N. I. Pirogov became the 5th honorary citizen of Moscow, thanks to his work for the benefit of education and science.
At the beginning of 1881, Pirogov drew attention to irritation and health problems. N. I. Pirogov died on November 23, 1881 in the village of Cherry (Vinnitsa) due to cancer.
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Date of Birth: |
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Place of Birth: |
Moscow, Russian Empire |
Date of death: |
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Place of death: |
Cherry village (now within the boundaries of Vinnitsa), Podolsk province, Russian Empire |
Citizenship: |
Russian empire |
Occupation: |
Prose writer, poet, playwright, translator |
Scientific area: |
The medicine |
Alma mater: |
Moscow University, Dorpat University |
Known as: |
Surgeon, creator of the atlas of topographic human anatomy, military field surgery, founder of anesthesia, outstanding teacher. |
Awards and prizes: |
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Crimean War
After the Crimean War
Last confession
Last days
Meaning
In Ukraine
In Belarus
In Bulgaria
In Estonia
In Moldavia
In philately
The image of Pirogov in art
Interesting Facts
(November 13 (25), 1810, Moscow - November 23 (December 5), 1881, Cherry village (now within the boundaries of Vinnitsa), Podolsk province, Russian Empire) - Russian surgeon and anatomist, naturalist and teacher, creator of the first atlas of topographic anatomy, founder of Russian military field surgery, founder of the Russian school of anesthesia. Corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.
Biography
Nikolai Ivanovich was born in Moscow in 1810, in the family of a military treasurer, Major Ivan Ivanovich Pirogov (1772-1826). Mother Elizaveta Ivanovna Novikova belonged to an old Moscow merchant family. At the age of fourteen, he entered the medical faculty of Moscow University. After receiving a diploma, he studied abroad for several more years. Pirogov prepared for professorship at the Professorial Institute at the University of Derpt (now the University of Tartu). Here, in the surgical clinic, Pirogov worked for five years, brilliantly defended his doctoral dissertation, and at the age of only twenty-six was elected professor at Dorpat University. A few years later, Pirogov was invited to St. Petersburg, where he headed the Department of Surgery at the Medical and Surgical Academy. At the same time, Pirogov led the Clinic of Hospital Surgery organized by him. Since Pirogov's duties included the training of military surgeons, he began to study the surgical methods common in those days. Many of them were radically reworked by him; in addition, Pirogov developed a number of completely new techniques, thanks to which he managed more often than other surgeons to avoid amputation of limbs. One of these techniques is still called the “Pirogov operation”.
In search of an effective teaching method, Pirogov decided to apply anatomical studies on frozen corpses. Pirogov himself called this "ice anatomy". Thus was born a new medical discipline - topographic anatomy. After several years of such anatomy study, Pirogov published the first anatomical atlas entitled "Topographic anatomy, illustrated by cuts made through the frozen human body in three directions", which became an indispensable guide for surgeons. From that moment on, surgeons were able to operate with minimal trauma to the patient. This atlas and the technique proposed by Pirogov became the basis for the entire subsequent development of operative surgery.
In 1847, Pirogov went to the Caucasus to join the army, as he wanted to test the operating methods he had developed in the field. In the Caucasus, he first used dressing with bandages soaked in starch. Starch dressing turned out to be more convenient and stronger than previously used splints. Here, in the village of Salta, Pirogov for the first time in the history of medicine began to operate on the wounded with ether anesthesia in the field. In total, the great surgeon performed about 10 thousand operations under ether anesthesia.
Crimean War
In 1855, during the Crimean War, Pirogov was the chief surgeon of Sevastopol, besieged by the Anglo-French troops. Operating on the wounded, for the first time in the history of Russian medicine, Pirogov used a plaster cast, giving rise to a savings tactic in the treatment of limb injuries and saving many soldiers and officers from amputation. During the siege of Sevastopol, to care for the wounded, Pirogov supervised the training and work of the sisters of the Exaltation of the Cross community of sisters of mercy. This was also an innovation at the time.
The most important merit of Pirogov is the introduction in Sevastopol of a completely new method of caring for the wounded. This method lies in the fact that the wounded were subject to careful selection already at the first dressing station; depending on the severity of the wounds, some of them were subject to immediate operation in the field, while others, with lighter wounds, were evacuated inland for treatment in stationary military hospitals. Therefore, Pirogov is rightly considered the founder of a special area in surgery, known as military field surgery.
For merits in helping the wounded and sick, Pirogov was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav, 1st degree, which gave the right to hereditary nobility.
After the Crimean War
Despite the heroic defense, Sevastopol was taken by the besiegers, and the Crimean War was lost by Russia. Returning to St. Petersburg, Pirogov, at a reception at Alexander II, told the emperor about problems in the troops, as well as about the general backwardness of the Russian army and its weapons. The emperor did not want to listen to Pirogov. From that moment on, Nikolai Ivanovich fell out of favor, he was sent to Odessa to the post of trustee of the Odessa and Kyiv educational districts. Pirogov tried to reform the existing system of school education, his actions led to a conflict with the authorities, and the scientist had to leave his post.
Not only was he not appointed minister of public education, but they even refused to make him a comrade (deputy) minister, instead he was "exiled" to supervise Russian candidates for professorships studying abroad. He chose Heidelberg as his residence, where he arrived in May 1862. The candidates were very grateful to him, for example, Nobel laureate I. I. Mechnikov warmly recalled this. There he not only fulfilled his duties, often traveling to other cities where the candidates studied, but also provided them and their family members and friends with any, including medical assistance, and one of the candidates, the head of the Russian community of Heidelberg, held a fundraiser for the treatment of Garibaldi and persuaded Pirogov to examine the wounded Garibaldi. Pirogov refused money, but went to Garibaldi and found a bullet not noticed by other world-famous doctors, insisted that Garibaldi leave the climate harmful to his wound, as a result of which the Italian government released Garibaldi from captivity. According to the general opinion, it was N.I. Pirogov who then saved the leg, and, most likely, the life of Garibaldi, who was convicted by other doctors. In his Memoirs, Garibaldi recalls: “The outstanding professors Petridge, Nelaton and Pirogov, who showed generous attention to me when I was in a dangerous state, proved that there are no boundaries for good deeds, for true science in the family of mankind ... "After that Petersburg, there was an attempt on the life of Alexander II by nihilists who admired Garibaldi, and, most importantly, Garibaldi's participation in the war of Prussia and Italy against Austria, which displeased the Austrian government, and the "red" Pirogov was generally dismissed from public service even without pension rights.
In the prime of his creative powers, Pirogov retired to his small estate "Cherry" not far from Vinnitsa, where he organized a free hospital. He briefly traveled from there only abroad, and also at the invitation of St. Petersburg University to give lectures. By this time, Pirogov was already a member of several foreign academies. For a relatively long time, Pirogov left the estate only twice: the first time in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war, being invited to the front on behalf of the International Red Cross, and the second time, in 1877-1878 - already at a very old age - he worked for several months on front during the Russian-Turkish war.
Russian-Turkish war 1877-1878
When Emperor Alexander II visited Bulgaria in August 1877, during the Russian-Turkish war, he remembered Pirogov as an incomparable surgeon and the best organizer of the medical service at the front. Despite his advanced age (then Pirogov was already 67 years old), Nikolai Ivanovich agreed to go to Bulgaria, provided that he was given complete freedom of action. His desire was granted, and on October 10, 1877, Pirogov arrived in Bulgaria, in the village of Gorna-Studena, not far from Plevna, where the main apartment of the Russian command was located.
Pirogov organized the treatment of soldiers, care for the wounded and sick in military hospitals in Svishtov, Zgalev, Bolgaren, Gorna-Studena, Veliko Tarnovo, Bokhot, Byala, Plevna. From October 10 to December 17, 1877, Pirogov traveled over 700 km in a cart and sleigh, over an area of 12,000 square meters. km., occupied by the Russians between the rivers Vit and Yantra. Nikolai Ivanovich visited 11 Russian military temporary hospitals, 10 divisional infirmaries and 3 pharmacy warehouses stationed in 22 different settlements. During this time, he was engaged in treatment and operated on both Russian soldiers and many Bulgarians.
Last confession
In 1881, N. I. Pirogov became the fifth honorary citizen of Moscow "in connection with fifty years of labor activity in the field of education, science and citizenship."
Last days
At the beginning of 1881, Pirogov drew attention to pain and irritation on the mucous membrane of the hard palate, on May 24, 1881, N.V. Sklifosovsky established the presence of cancer of the upper jaw. N. I. Pirogov died at 20:25 on November 23, 1881. in with. Cherry, now part of Vinnitsa.
Pirogov's body was embalmed by his attending physician D. I. Vyvodtsev using the method he had just developed, and buried in a mausoleum in the village of Vyshnia near Vinnitsa. In the late 1920s, robbers visited the crypt, damaged the lid of the sarcophagus, stole Pirogov's sword (a gift from Franz Joseph) and a pectoral cross. During the Second World War, during the retreat of the Soviet troops, the sarcophagus with the body of Pirogov was hidden in the ground, while being damaged, which led to damage to the body, which was subsequently restored and re-embalmed.
Officially, Pirogov's tomb is called the "necropolis church", the body is located slightly below ground level in the crypt - the basement of the Orthodox church, in a glazed sarcophagus, which can be accessed by those wishing to pay tribute to the memory of the great scientist.
Meaning
The main significance of the activity of N. I. Pirogov is that with his selfless and often disinterested work he turned surgery into a science, arming doctors with scientifically based methods of surgical intervention.
A rich collection of documents related to the life and work of N. I. Pirogov, his personal belongings, medical instruments, lifetime editions of his works are stored in the funds of the Military Medical Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Of particular interest are the 2-volume manuscript of the scientist “Questions of life. Diary of an old doctor” and a suicide note left by him indicating the diagnosis of his illness.
Contribution to the development of national pedagogy
In the classic article “Questions of Life”, Pirogov considered the fundamental problems of Russian education. He showed the absurdity of class education, the discord between school and life, put forward the formation of a highly moral personality, ready to renounce selfish aspirations for the good of society, as the main goal of education. Pirogov believed that for this it was necessary to rebuild the entire education system based on the principles of humanism and democracy. The education system that ensures the development of the individual must be based on a scientific basis, from primary to higher education, and ensure the continuity of all education systems.
Pedagogical views: Pirogov considered the main idea of universal education, the education of a citizen useful to the country; noted the need for social preparation for life of a highly moral person with a broad moral outlook: “ Being human is what education should lead to»; upbringing and education should be in their native language. " Contempt for the native language dishonors the national feeling". He pointed out that the basis of subsequent professional education should be a broad general education; proposed to attract prominent scientists to teaching in higher education, recommended to strengthen the conversations of professors with students; fought for general secular education; urged to respect the personality of the child; fought for the autonomy of higher education.
Criticism of class vocational education: Pirogov opposed the class school and early utilitarian-professional training, against the early premature specialization of children; believed that it hinders the moral education of children, narrows their horizons; condemned arbitrariness, the barracks regime in schools, thoughtless attitude towards children.
Didactic ideas: teachers should discard old dogmatic ways of teaching and apply new methods; it is necessary to awaken the thought of students, to instill the skills of independent work; the teacher must draw the attention and interest of the student to the reported material; transfer from class to class should be based on the results of annual performance; in transfer exams there is an element of chance and formalism.
Physical punishment. In this regard, he was a follower of J. Locke, considering corporal punishment as a means of humiliating a child, causing irreparable damage to his morals, accustoming him to slavish obedience, based only on fear, and not on understanding and evaluating his actions. Slave obedience forms a vicious nature, seeking retribution for its humiliation. N. I. Pirogov believed that the result of training and moral education, the effectiveness of the methods of maintaining discipline are determined by the objective, if possible, assessment by the teacher of all the circumstances that caused the misconduct, and the imposition of punishment that does not frighten and humiliate the child, but educates him. Condemning the use of the rod as a means of disciplinary action, he allowed the use of physical punishment in exceptional cases, but only by order of the pedagogical council. Despite such an ambiguity in the position of N.I. Pirogov, it should be noted that the question he raised and the discussion that followed on the pages of the press had positive consequences: “The Charter of gymnasiums and progymnasiums” of 1864, corporal punishment was abolished.
The system of public education according to N. I. Pirogov:
- Elementary (primary) school (2 years), studying arithmetic, grammar;
- Incomplete secondary school of two types: classical gymnasium (4 years, general education); real progymnasium (4 years);
- Secondary school of two types: classical gymnasium (5 years of general education: Latin, Greek, Russian, literature, mathematics); real gymnasium (3 years, applied nature: professional subjects);
- Higher school: universities higher educational institutions.
Family
- First wife - Ekaterina Berezina. She died of complications after childbirth at the age of 24. Sons - Nikolai, Vladimir.
- The second wife is Baroness Alexandra von Bystrom.
Memory
In Russia
In Ukraine
In Belarus
- Pirogova street in the city of Minsk.
In Bulgaria
The grateful Bulgarian people erected 26 obelisks, 3 rotundas and a monument to N. I. Pirogov in Skobelevsky Park in Plevna. In the village of Bokhot, on the spot where the Russian 69th military-temporary hospital stood, a park-museum “N. I. Pirogov.
When the first emergency hospital in Bulgaria was established in Sofia in 1951, it was named after N.I. Pirogov. Later, the hospital changed its name many times, first to the Institute of Emergency Medicine, then to the Republican Scientific and Practical Institute of Emergency Medicine, the Scientific Institute of Emergency Medicine, the Multidisciplinary Hospital for Active Treatment and Ambulance, and finally - University MBALSP. And the bas-relief of Pirogov has never changed at the entrance. Now in MBALSM "N. I. Pirogov” employs 361 medical residents, 150 researchers, 1025 medical specialists and 882 support staff. All of them proudly call themselves "pirogovtsy". The hospital is considered one of the best in Bulgaria and treats over 40,000 inpatients and 300,000 outpatients a year.
On October 14, 1977, a postage stamp "100 years since the arrival of Academician Nikolai Pirogov in Bulgaria" was printed in Bulgaria.
The image of Pirogov in art
- Pirogov is the main character in Kuprin's story "The Wonderful Doctor".
- The main character in the story "The Beginning" and in the story "Bucephalus" by Yuri German.
- The 1947 film "Pirogov" - in the role of Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov - People's Artist of the USSR Konstantin Skorobogatov.
- Pirogov is the main character in the novel "Privy Councilor" by Boris Zolotarev and Yuri Tyurin. (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1986. - 686 p.)
- In 1855, when he was a senior teacher at the Simferopol gymnasium, D. I. Mendeleev, who had health problems from his youth (it was even suspected that he had consumption), at the request of the St. Petersburg doctor N. F. Zdekauer, was accepted and examined by N. And Pirogov, who, stating the patient's satisfactory condition, declared: "You will outlive us both" - this predestination not only instilled confidence in the future great scientist in the favor of fate, but also came true.
- For a long time, N. I. Pirogov was credited with the authorship of the article “The Ideal of a Woman”. A recent study proves that the article is a selection from the correspondence of N. I. Pirogov with his second wife A. A. Bistrom.
The future great doctor was born on November 27, 1810 in Moscow. His father served as treasurer. Ivan Ivanovich Pirogov had fourteen children, most of them died in infancy; of the six survivors, Nikolai was the youngest.
A family friend helped him get an education - a well-known Moscow doctor, professor of Moscow University E. Mukhin, who noticed the boy's abilities and began to work with him individually.
When Nikolai was fourteen years old, he entered the medical faculty of Moscow University. To do this, he had to add two years to himself, but he passed the exams no worse than his older comrades. Pirogov studied easily. In addition, he had to constantly earn extra money to help his family. Finally, Pirogov managed to get a job as a dissector in the anatomical theater. This job gave him invaluable experience and convinced him that he should become a surgeon.
Graduated from the university one of the first in terms of academic performance. Pirogov went to prepare for a professorship at Yuriev University in the city of Tartu. At that time, this university was considered the best in Russia. Here, in the surgical clinic, Pirogov worked for five years, brilliantly defended his doctoral dissertation, and at the age of twenty-six became a professor of surgery.
He chose as the subject of his dissertation the ligation of the abdominal aorta, performed until that time - and then with a fatal outcome - only once by the English surgeon Astley Cooper. The conclusions of the Pirogov dissertation were equally important for both theory and practice. He was the first to study and describe the topography, that is, the location of the abdominal aorta in humans, circulatory disorders during its ligation, the circulatory pathways with its obstruction, and explained the causes of postoperative complications. He proposed two ways to access the aorta: transperitoneal and extraperitoneal. When any damage to the peritoneum threatened death, the second method was especially necessary. Astley Cooper, who for the first time bandaged the aorta in an transperitoneal way, said, having become acquainted with Pirogov's dissertation, that if he had to do the operation again, he would have chosen a different method. Is this not the highest recognition!
When Pirogov, after five years in Dorpat, went to Berlin to study, the famous surgeons, to whom he went with a respectfully bowed head, read his dissertation, hastily translated into German.
He found a teacher who, more than others, combined everything that he was looking for in the surgeon Pirogov, not in Berlin, but in Göttingen, in the person of Professor Langenbeck. The Göttingen professor taught him the purity of surgical techniques. He taught him to hear the whole and complete melody of the operation. He showed Pirogov how to adapt the movements of the legs and the whole body to the actions of the operating hand. He hated slowness and demanded fast, precise and rhythmic work.
Returning home, Pirogov fell seriously ill and was left for treatment in Riga. Riga was lucky: if Pirogov had not fallen ill, she would not have become a platform for his rapid recognition. As soon as Pirogov got up from the hospital bed, he undertook to operate. The city had heard rumors before about the promising young surgeon. Now it was necessary to confirm the good reputation that ran far ahead.
Best of the day
He began with rhinoplasty: he carved out a new nose for a noseless barber. Then he recalled that it was the best nose he had ever made in his life. Plastic surgery was followed by the inevitable lithotomies, amputations, removal of tumors. In Riga, he operated for the first time as a teacher.
From Riga he went to Derpt, where he learned that the Moscow chair promised to him had been given to another candidate. But he was lucky - Ivan Filippovich Moyer handed over his clinic in Dorpat to the student.
One of the most significant works of Pirogov is the "Surgical Anatomy of Arterial Trunks and Fascias" completed in Dorpat. Already in the name itself, giant layers are raised - surgical anatomy, a science that Pirogov created from his first, youthful works, erected, and the only pebble that started the movement of bulks - fascia.
Before Pirogov, they almost did not deal with fascia: they knew that there were such fibrous fibrous plates, membranes surrounding muscle groups or individual muscles, they saw them, opening corpses, stumbled upon them during operations, cut them with a knife, not attaching importance to them.
Pirogov begins with a very modest task: he undertakes to study the direction of the fascial membranes. Having learned the particular, the course of each fascia, he goes to the general and deduces certain patterns of the position of the fascia relative to nearby vessels, muscles, nerves, and discovers certain anatomical patterns.
Everything that Pirogov discovered, he does not need in itself, he needs all this in order to indicate the best methods for performing operations, first of all, "to find the right way to ligate this or that artery," as he says. This is where the new science created by Pirogov begins - this is surgical anatomy.
Why does a surgeon need anatomy at all, he asks: is it just to know the structure of the human body? And he answers: no, not only! The surgeon, explains Pirogov, should deal with anatomy differently than an anatomist. Thinking about the structure of the human body, the surgeon cannot for a moment lose sight of what the anatomist does not even think about - the landmarks that will show him the way during the operation.
Pirogov supplied the description of operations with drawings. Nothing like the anatomical atlases and tables that were used before him. No discounts, no conventions - the greatest accuracy of the drawings: the proportions are not violated, every branch, every knot, lintel is preserved and reproduced. Pirogov, not without pride, suggested that patient readers check any detail of the drawings in the anatomical theater. He did not yet know that he had new discoveries ahead of him, the highest precision ...
In the meantime, he goes to France, where five years earlier, after a professorial institute, the authorities did not want to let him go. In the Parisian clinics, he grasps some amusing particulars and does not find anything unknown. It is curious: as soon as he was in Paris, he hurried to the famous professor of surgery and anatomy Velpo and found him reading "The Surgical Anatomy of the Arterial Trunks and Fascia" ...
In 1841, Pirogov was invited to the Department of Surgery at the Medical and Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg. Here the scientist worked for more than ten years and created the first surgical clinic in Russia. In it, he founded another branch of medicine - hospital surgery.
He came to the capital as a winner. Three hundred people, no less, crowd into the audience where he reads a course of surgery: not only doctors crowd on the benches, students from other educational institutions, writers, officials, military men, artists, engineers, even ladies come to listen to Pirogov. Newspapers and magazines write about him, compare his lectures with the concerts of the famous Italian Angelica Catalani, that is, with divine singing, they compare his speech about incisions, stitches, purulent inflammations and autopsy results.
Nikolai Ivanovich is appointed director of the Tool Factory, and he agrees. Now he comes up with tools that any surgeon will use to perform the operation well and quickly. He is asked to accept the position of a consultant in one hospital, in another, in a third, and he again agrees,
But not only well-wishers surround the scientist. He has a lot of envious people and enemies who are disgusted by the zeal and fanaticism of the doctor. In the second year of his life in St. Petersburg, Pirogov fell seriously ill, poisoned by hospital miasma and the bad air of the dead. I couldn't get up for a month and a half. He felt sorry for himself, poisoned his soul with sorrowful thoughts about years lived without love and lonely old age.
He went over in his memory all those who could bring him family love and happiness. The most suitable of them seemed to him Ekaterina Dmitrievna Berezina, a girl from a well-born, but collapsed and greatly impoverished family. A hurried modest wedding took place.
Pirogov had no time - great things were waiting for him. He simply locked his wife within the four walls of a rented and, on the advice of acquaintances, furnished apartment. He didn’t take her to the theater, because he disappeared until late in the anatomical theater, he didn’t go to balls with her, because balls were idleness, he took away her novels and slipped her scientific journals in return. Pirogov jealously pushed his wife away from her friends, because she had to belong entirely to him, just as he belongs entirely to science. And for a woman, probably, there was too much and too little of one great Pirogov.
Ekaterina Dmitrievna died in her fourth year of marriage, leaving Pirogov two sons: the second cost her her life.
But in the difficult days of grief and despair for Pirogov, a great event happened - his project of the world's first Anatomical Institute was approved by the highest.
On October 16, 1846, the first test of ether anesthesia took place. And he quickly began to conquer the world. In Russia, the first operation under anesthesia was performed on February 7, 1847 by Pirogov's comrade at the professorial institute, Fedor Ivanovich Inozemtsev. He headed the Department of Surgery at Moscow University.
Nikolay Ivanovich performed the first operation with the use of anesthesia a week later. But from February to November 1847, Inozemtsev performed eighteen operations under anesthesia, and by May 1847 Pirogov had received the results of fifty. During the year, six hundred and ninety operations were performed under anesthesia in thirteen cities of Russia. Three hundred of them are from Pirogovo!
Soon, Nikolai Ivanovich took part in hostilities in the Caucasus. Here, in the village of Salty, for the first time in the history of medicine, he began to operate on the wounded with ether anesthesia. In total, the great surgeon performed about 10,000 operations under ether anesthesia.
One day while walking through the market. Pirogov saw the butchers sawing the carcasses of cows into pieces. The scientist drew attention to the fact that the location of the internal organs is clearly visible on the cut. After some time, he tried this method in the anatomical theater, sawing frozen corpses with a special saw. Pirogov himself called this "ice anatomy". Thus was born a new medical discipline - topographic anatomy.
With the help of cuts made in this way, Pirogov compiled the first anatomical atlas, which became an indispensable guide for surgeons. Now they have the opportunity to operate, causing minimal injury to the patient. This atlas and the technique proposed by Pirogov became the basis for the entire subsequent development of operative surgery.
After the death of Ekaterina Dmitrievna Pirogov was left alone. "I have no friends," he admitted with his usual frankness. And at home, the boys, sons, Nikolai and Vladimir were waiting for him. Pirogov twice unsuccessfully tried to marry for convenience, which he did not consider it necessary to hide from himself, from acquaintances, it seems that from the girls planned to be the bride.
In a small circle of acquaintances, where Pirogov sometimes spent evenings, he was told about the twenty-two-year-old Baroness Alexandra Antonovna Bistrom, who enthusiastically read and reread his article on the ideal of a woman. The girl feels like a lonely soul, thinks a lot and seriously about life, loves children. In conversation, she was called "a girl with convictions."
Pirogov proposed to Baroness Bistrom. She agreed. Gathering at the estate of the bride's parents, where it was supposed to play an inconspicuous wedding. Pirogov, confident in advance that the honeymoon, violating his usual activities, would make him quick-tempered and intolerant, asked Alexandra Antonovna to pick up crippled poor people in need of an operation for his arrival: work will delight the first time of love!
When the Crimean War began in 1853, Nikolai Ivanovich considered it his civic duty to go to Sevastopol. He was appointed to the active army. Operating on the wounded. Pirogov, for the first time in the history of medicine, used a plaster cast, which made it possible to speed up the healing process of fractures and saved many soldiers and officers from ugly curvature of the limbs.
The most important merit of Pirogov is the introduction of sorting the wounded in Sevastopol: one operation was done directly in combat conditions, others were evacuated deep into the country after first aid. On his initiative, a new form of medical care was introduced in the Russian army - nurses appeared. Thus, it was Pirogov who laid the foundations of military field medicine.
After the fall of Sevastopol, Pirogov returned to St. Petersburg, where, at a reception at Alexander II, he reported on the mediocre leadership of the army by Prince Menshikov. The tsar did not want to heed the advice of Pirogov, and from that moment Nikolai Ivanovich fell out of favor.
He left the Medico-Surgical Academy. Appointed as a trustee of the Odessa and Kyiv educational districts, Pirogov is trying to change the school system that existed in them. Naturally, his actions led to a conflict with the authorities, and the scientist had to leave his post.
For some time, Pirogov settled in his estate "Cherry" near Vinnitsa, where he organized a free hospital. He traveled from there only abroad, and also at the invitation of St. Petersburg University to give lectures. By this time, Pirogov was already a member of several foreign academies.
In May 1881, the fiftieth anniversary of Pirogov's scientific activity was solemnly celebrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The great Russian physiologist Sechenov addressed him with a greeting. However, at that time the scientist was already terminally ill, and in the summer of 1881 he died on his estate.
The significance of Pirogov's activity lies in the fact that with his selfless and often disinterested work he turned surgery into a science, equipping doctors with a scientifically based method of surgical intervention.
Shortly before his death, the scientist made another discovery - he proposed a completely new way of embalming the dead. To this day, the body of Pirogov himself, embalmed in this way, is kept in the church of the village of Vishni.
The memory of the great surgeon is preserved to this day. Every year on his birthday, a prize and a medal named after him are awarded for achievements in the field of anatomy and surgery. In the house where Pirogov lived, a museum of the history of medicine was opened, in addition, some medical institutions and city streets were named after him.
ACTIVITIES OF N.I. PIROGOV
1. Pirogov - the founder of surgical anatomy.
The founder of surgical anatomy is a brilliant Russian scientist, anatomist, surgeon N.I. Pirogov. Questions of topographic anatomy are set out in his three outstanding works: 1. “Surgical anatomy of arterial trunks and fascia” 2. “Complete course of applied anatomy of the human body with drawings. Descriptive-physiological and surgical anatomy" 3. "Topographic anatomy, illustrated by cuts made through the frozen human body in three directions."
In the first of these works, N. I. Pirogov established the most important for surgical practice laws of the relationship between blood vessels and fascia, which form the basis of topographic anatomy as a science. He described the position of the arterial trunks and the layers covering them as they appear to the surgeon when the vessels are exposed during the operation. It is this kind of information that, according to N.I. Pirogov, should constitute the content of surgical anatomy.
N. I. Pirogov also used the method of cuts to develop the question of the most appropriate access to various organs and rational operational methods. So, having proposed a new way of exposing the common and external iliac arteries, Pirogov made a series of cuts in directions corresponding to skin incisions during these operations. Pirogov's cuts clearly show the significant advantages of both of his methods compared to others. The extraperitoneal lumbar-ilio-inguinal incision proposed by Pirogov served as an impetus for further development of access to the retroperitoneal organs.
Pirogov said: There may be a different approach to information about the structure of the human body, and Pirogov writes about this: “... A surgeon should deal with anatomy, but not like an anatomist ... The department of surgical anatomy should belong to a professor not of anatomy, but of surgery. .. Only in the hands of a practical doctor can applied anatomy be instructive for listeners. Let the anatomist study the human corpse to the smallest detail, and yet he will never be able to draw the attention of students to those points of anatomy that are extremely important for the surgeon, but for him may have absolutely no significance.
2.N.I. Pirogov - founder of experimental surgery
Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov(1810-1881) - Russian surgeon and anatomist, teacher, public figure, founder of military field surgery and anatomical and experimental direction in surgery, corresponding member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1846).
One of the most significant works of Pirogov is the "Surgical Anatomy of Arterial Trunks and Fascias" completed in Dorpat. Everything that Pirogov discovered, he does not need in itself, he needs all this in order to indicate the best methods for performing operations, first of all, "to find the right way to ligate this or that artery," as he says. Here begins a new science created by Pirogov - this is surgical anatomy. In 1841, Pirogov was invited to the Department of Surgery at the Medical and Surgical Academy of St. Petersburg. Here the scientist worked for more than ten years and created the first surgical clinic in Russia. In it, he founded another branch of medicine - hospital surgery. Nikolai Ivanovich is appointed director of the Tool Plant. Now he comes up with tools that any surgeon will use to perform the operation well and quickly. On October 16, 1846, the first test of ether anesthesia took place. In Russia, the first operation under anesthesia was performed on February 7, 1847 by Pirogov's comrade at the professorial institute, Fedor Ivanovich Inozemtsev. Soon, Nikolai Ivanovich took part in hostilities in the Caucasus. Here, in the village of Salty, for the first time in the history of medicine, he began to operate on the wounded with ether anesthesia. In total, the great surgeon performed about 10,000 operations under ether anesthesia. Pirogov in the anatomical theater, sawing frozen corpses with a special saw. With the help of cuts made in this way, Pirogov compiled the first anatomical atlas, which became an indispensable guide for surgeons. Now they have the opportunity to operate, causing minimal injury to the patient. When the Crimean War began in 1853, Nikolai Ivanovich went to Sevastopol. Operating on the wounded, Pirogov for the first time in the history of medicine used a plaster cast.
In the history of Russian medicine, there is no more famous name than Nikolai Pirogov. This purely peaceful man took part in four wars. He, a surgeon from God, owed their salvation to thousands of Russian soldiers and sailors.
Portrait of the surgeon Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov. Hood. I.E. Repin. 1881
The cause of the Crimean War was the struggle between Russia and the Western powers for the division of the possessions of Turkey - the "sick man of Europe", as he called her. Nicholas I. The emperor seriously planned to realize the dream of his ancestors by erecting an Orthodox cross on Hagia Sophia, turned into a mosque by the Turks. But this did not fit into the plans of England and France, which jointly announced an ultimatum to Russia: do not touch Turkey, otherwise there will be war. The Russian tsar did not obey and moved the army to the Danube, and in November 1853 the squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Pavel Nakhimov launched the Turkish fleet to the bottom in the Sinop Bay.
The answer was the declaration of war, in which Russia, in addition to the Ottoman Empire, was opposed by England, France and the small Sardinian kingdom, the core of the future Italy. Nicholas I found no allies; the monarchs of Austria and Prussia, whom he had only recently saved from revolution, turned their backs on him. The war unfolded slowly: only in the summer of 1854 the Allied squadron approached the coast of the Crimea, and in September a landing force was landed there. Anglo-French ships tested the strength of the Russian defense everywhere: in Odessa, the Baltic, the White Sea and even Kamchatka, but the Crimean front became decisive. The Europeans wanted to forge here and defeat the Russian Black Sea Fleet, and with luck, the ground forces. The Turks had a different task: to return the Crimea, taken from them 70 years ago.
sad forty percent
The war quickly revealed the advantage of Western weapons over obsolete Russian ones. Russian troops were defeated on Alma, near Balaklava and Inkerman and were besieged in Sevastopol, which was subjected to brutal shelling from land and sea almost daily.
At first, the forces of the parties were almost equal: the city was defended by 48 thousand Russian soldiers and sailors, and there were just over 50 thousand opponents. But the coalition constantly received reinforcements (by the end of the siege, it was already about 110 thousand), and the ranks of the defenders of Sevastopol quickly melted away. They were put out of action by the autumn Crimean fever, and injuries, which, at the then level of sanitation, led to death in 40% of cases. The wounded were lying side by side in rooms that were completely unsuitable for sick people, suffering from hunger and cold. Amputations were performed without any anesthesia.
Reports of disorder in medical institutions penetrated even the Russian press, which was obedient to censorship, causing indignation in society. Elena Pavlovna, the widow of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, the younger brother of Nicholas I, intervened in the situation. She had a bold plan: to send women who were burning with the desire to serve the Fatherland to help the wounded. In October 1854, the Grand Duchess, a German by birth, founded the Exaltation of the Cross Community of Sisters of Mercy and issued an appeal "To all Russian women who are not bound by family obligations."
Practical Elena Pavlovna understood that her wards would be able to cope with their task only in the conditions of more or less established field medicine. And only one person could fix it, to whom she turned. It was a 44 year old Nikolay Ivanovich Pirogov.
"For the benefit of the army on the battlefield"
He was born in 1810 to a military treasurer and the daughter of a Moscow merchant, becoming the youngest of 14 children, most of whom died in infancy. A friend of his father was a famous doctor Ephraim Mukhin, who first noticed Nikolai's interest in medicine. He helped the boy at the age of 14 enter the medical faculty of Moscow University. Nikolai earned his own money for training, working as a dissector in a hospital morgue, which gave him invaluable experience, since at that time medical students were forbidden to dissect corpses.
Defense of Sevastopol. Hood. D.N. Kardovsky. 1910. Pirogov arrived in the besieged city to help the wounded in November 1854
After graduating from the university among the best, Pirogov went to Dorpat (now Tartu) to work on his dissertation and at the age of 26 received the title of professor of medicine. His studies continued: he spent some time in Germany, where he mastered the latest surgical techniques. Returning to his homeland, Pirogov stayed in Riga due to illness. There he opened a practice and immediately became known as a miracle doctor, having managed to carve out a new nose for a local barber. In Dorpat, Pirogov's former teacher Ivan Moyer entrusted him with his department, and already in 1841 the young surgeon moved to the capital, where he created the first hospital surgery clinic in Russia. Crowds gathered at his lectures at the Medico-Surgical Academy, as if they were attending concerts by Italian tenors.
Reforming medicine, Nikolai Pirogov first of all set up the production of high-quality medical instruments. Under him, the practice of regular airing and wet cleaning of hospital wards became obligatory, because once he himself almost died, breathing in hospital miasma.
Portrait of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna. Hood. K.P. Bryullov. 1829. Elena Pavlovna - a well-known philanthropist, founder of the Exaltation of the Cross Community of Sisters of Mercy
It was then that illness and fear of being left without heirs inspired him with the idea of family happiness, and at the age of 32 Pirogov got married. His chosen one was Ekaterina Dmitrievna Berezina, who bore him two sons - Nikolai and Vladimir (the first became a physicist, the second - a historian, but neither one nor the other reached heights in science). Constantly disappearing at work, Pirogov locked his young wife at home, did not take her out into the world, considering it a waste of time, and instead of French novels, he forced Ekaterina Dmitrievna to read books on medicine. She died in childbirth four years later. Nikolai Ivanovich, having grieved a little, was carried away by a new business that captured him - the introduction of an effective method of anesthesia, ether anesthesia.
In 1847 alone, he performed about 300 operations using anesthesia - half of those performed that year in all of Russia. Pirogov also tested this method when providing surgical assistance directly on the battlefields. Having gone to the Caucasus, where the war with the highlanders was in full swing, in the village of Salty, for the first time, he carried out such operations in the field.
Soon he married again - by calculation, which he did not hide at all - to the 22-year-old Baroness Alexandra Antonovna Bistrom. Going to visit her estate, for the sake of family peace, he asked his wife to pick up more sick peasants in the district for him - their treatment made it possible to brighten up the unbearable idleness for him.
“There is NO SOLDIER UNDER SEVASTOPOL, NO SOLDIER OR SAILOR SUIT WHO WOULD NOT BLESS THE NAME OF PIROGOV and would not teach her child to pronounce this name with reverence"
But if Pirogov's family life improved, then his career almost went downhill. When, returning from the Caucasus, he appeared to the Minister of War Alexander Chernyshev, instead of expressing gratitude, he rudely scolded the surgeon for the mess in his military uniform. Then Pirogov was also reprimanded - the first during his service. With Nikolai Ivanovich - also for the first time - there was a tantrum, he was going to quit and even leave the ungrateful Fatherland. The situation was saved by Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, who invited the physician to her place and managed to console him.
“The Grand Duchess gave me back my good spirits,” he wrote later. “Her treatment of me made me ashamed of my momentary weakness and looked at the tactlessness of the authorities as the masterful rudeness of lackeys.”
It is clear why Elena Pavlovna turned to him a few years later with a request for help in organizing the rescue of the wounded, especially since Pirogov himself rushed to the Crimea in order to “use his strength and knowledge for the benefit of the army on the battlefield.” All his petitions were drowned in a bureaucratic swamp, but the intervention of such a well-known philanthropist, a relative of the king, instantly decided the matter.
“Not medicine, but administration”
In November 1854, Nikolai Pirogov arrived in Sevastopol, accompanied by doctors. Alexander Obermiller and Vasily Sokhranicheva. With him was his faithful assistant - a paramedic Ivan Kalashnikov. Later, in the preface to "The Beginnings of General Military Field Surgery", Pirogov described what he saw as follows:
“The whole road from Bakhchisaray for 30 miles was cluttered with transports of the wounded, guns and fodder. The rain poured down like a bucket, the sick and among them the amputees lay in twos and threes on the wagon, moaning and trembling from dampness; both people and animals could hardly move in knee-deep mud; carrion lay at every step; at the same time, the cries of the wounded, and the croaking of birds of prey, who had flocked to prey in whole flocks, and the cries of exhausted drovers, and the distant rumble of Sevastopol cannons, were heard. Involuntarily, I had to think about the future fate of our patients; the premonition was disappointing. It came true."
Inspection of the hospital, located in the governor's house, struck the surgeon: the wounded were lying interspersed with typhoid patients on dirty beds or right on the floor. There were not enough doctors, medicines, or dressings. Pirogov bitterly wrote:
“At a time when all of Russia was plucking lint for Sevastopol, the British were bandaging this lint, and we had only straw.” There were only 25 doctors for 3 thousand wounded, and for the first 10 days after his arrival, Nikolai Ivanovich performed operations from morning to evening, saving those who could still be saved. Then he took up the organization of treatment, having learned from his own experience that "it is not medicine, but the administration that plays the main role in helping the wounded and sick in the theater of war."
Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov wrote about the sisters of mercy: “The presence of a woman, neatly dressed and helping with participation, enlivens the deplorable vale of suffering and disasters”
First of all, Pirogov ordered directly on the battlefield to divide the wounded into five categories:
1) hopeless;
2) dangerously wounded, requiring immediate assistance;
3) heavy, capable of surviving delivery to the hospital;
4) to be sent to the hospital;
5) lightly wounded who receive assistance on the spot.
Such sorting made it possible to unload the doctors who fell down. With great difficulty, but the surgeon managed to organize the work of military transport teams with horses and comfortable carts, thanks to which the wounded were quickly taken to the hospital.
Gypsum, disinfection, anesthesia and sisters of mercy
Only after that he was able to take up his main business - the introduction of new methods of treatment. Pirogov was the first to apply plaster bandages to fresh wounds and fractures, which not only avoided bone displacement, but also provided protection against infection.
The surgeon attached great importance to disinfection: he demanded that doctors wash their hands with alcohol or bleach solution, thereby removing "harmful enzymes." Many of his colleagues considered such precautions to be excessive; it is worth recalling that at that time no white coats were worn during operations, but, on the contrary, they looked for dirtier clothes - they would still get dirty with blood. The widespread use of disinfection began only 10 years later, but Pirogov's innovations were enough to minimize amputations, which gave a high mortality rate.
Dasha Sevastopolskaya is one of the sisters of mercy. Sculpture on the building of the panorama "Defense of Sevastopol 1854-1855"
Even more tangible mortality reduced the introduction of anesthesia. As anesthesia, both ether and newfangled chloroform were used, shortly before that British physicians used to relieve pain during the birth of Queen Victoria herself. Despite this, the Allied army still did not resort to this method, and mortality from wounds in their ranks was very high. Pirogov proudly wrote:
“Russia, having outstripped Europe with our actions… shows the entire enlightened world not only the possibility of application, but the undeniably beneficial effect of ethering over the wounded.”
Of course, the surgeon did not forget about the order of the Grand Duchess, making every effort to establish the work of the sisters of mercy. Twenty-eight of them arrived in Sevastopol 10 days after it. Having got acquainted with the arrivals, he divided them into three groups: dressings, pharmacists and housewives, and soon appointed also transport sisters, whose duties included escorting the wounded on the way. For each category, Nikolai Ivanovich wrote detailed instructions.
Russian chemist D.I. Mendeleev (1834–1907) spoke enthusiastically about Pirogov: “That was a doctor!” / Reproduction of TASS Newsreels
I must say that he had to face such "charms" of the women's team as gossip, quarrels, confrontation between "noble" and "simple". The head of the sisters, Alexandra Stakhovich, spoiled the famous blood surgeon enough, turning out to be especially rude, stupid, and, moreover, distinguished by excessive religious zeal. Fortunately, Pirogov managed to send her to the "mainland" with wounded officers, and put Ekaterina Bakunina, the great-niece of the field marshal, as her elder sister. Mikhail Kutuzov. About working with her, he wrote:
“This is an amazing woman: she, with her education, works as a nurse, travels with the sick to transports and does not listen to any slander.”
Despite all the difficulties that arose, Pirogov valued the sisters of mercy very highly: they worked on a par with men in dressing rooms and operating rooms, cared for the wounded, not being afraid of enemy bullets or “the horrifying spectacle of the most terrible destruction of the human body.” They were also involved in cooking, cleaning and - importantly - making sure that thieving quartermasters did not rob the wounded. Pirogov noted in a letter to his wife:
“The presence of a woman, neatly dressed and helping with participation, enlivens the deplorable vale of suffering and disasters.”
Of the 120 sisters of the Exaltation of the Cross Convent, 17 perished or died of disease. But nothing could frighten those who responded to the call of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna.
Among the sisters of mercy were those who independently began to help the wounded. For example, the famous Dasha Sevastopolskaya(Mikhailova). The daughter of a sailor who died in the Battle of Sinop, even before the foundation of the community in St. Petersburg, she went to combat positions in men's clothes with bandages and lint. Emperor Nicholas I awarded Dasha a gold medal and presented 500 silver rubles.
In the West, the first sister of mercy is considered to be an Englishwoman. Florence Nightingale, but she arrived in the Crimea, where the coalition troops were besieging Sevastopol, in the spring of 1855 - much later than the envoys of Elena Pavlovna, not to mention Dasha. Nikolai Pirogov also pointed this out:
“About Miss Neutingel [so in Pirogov's letter. - V. E.] and for the first time we heard about her “high soul ladies” only at the beginning of 1855 ... We have a duty to claim the palm in a matter so blessed, beneficial and now accepted by everyone.
In order to restore justice and preserve the memory of the descendants of the feat of the sisters of mercy, the surgeon wrote the "Historical Review of the Actions of the Exaltation of the Cross Sisters for the Care of the Wounded and Sick", which became one of the sources of inspiration for the Swiss Henri Dunant- the initiator of the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
"That was the doctor!"
Of course, not only sisters helped Pirogov in Sevastopol, but also a friendly team of doctors, which included such future stars of our medicine as Sergei Botkin and Erast Kade, who later became the chief physician of the Mariinsky hospital in St. Petersburg. Russian doctors were actively supported by their foreign colleagues, including 43 Americans who voluntarily crossed the ocean to defend the Crimea.
The arrival of Nikolai Ivanovich Pirogov in Moscow on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his scientific activity on May 22, 1881. Hood. I.E. Repin (sketch). 1883–1888
Eternally busy, Nikolai Pirogov still found time to give lectures on military field surgery to doctors and everyone who wanted to. These lectures were attended by a young officer Lev Tolstoy, who later always spoke of Pirogov with great respect. When the surgeon went to Simferopol for medicines, a young teacher, the future great chemist, turned to him for advice. Dmitry Mendeleev: local doctors found tuberculosis in him and predicted that he had six months to live. Having quickly examined the patient, Pirogov only grunted:
“You will live. Don't listen to any fools."
For many years Mendeleev recalled with delight:
“That was the doctor! I saw through a person and immediately understood my nature.
The surgeon aroused even greater admiration among ordinary soldiers. Once he was brought to the hospital the corpse of a soldier with his head torn off by a shell. The comrades of the deceased explained:
“We decided to give it to the doctor - he will sew. And what? He can do anything!
Poet Nikolay Alekseevich Nekrasov wrote in the pages of the Sovremennik magazine:
“There is no soldier near Sevastopol, no soldier or sailor who would not bless the name of Mr. Pirogov and would not teach her child to pronounce this name with reverence.<…>If at present there are personalities to whom the heart willingly and undividedly bestows its best sympathies, then, of course, Mr. Pirogov belongs to such personalities.
Pirogov worked sparing no effort, and as a result, his health began to fail. On June 1, 1855, he left the besieged city for St. Petersburg, but not to rest, but "to contribute in some way to a change in military medical practice in Sevastopol for the better." In the capital, he handed over to the Minister of War Vasily Dolgorukov memorandum "On the organization of assistance to the wounded." He was politely thanked and ... they put the note under the cloth.
Meanwhile, in the Crimea, everything went to a sad denouement. On June 6, the Allies launched an assault on the city. The defenders succeeded in recapturing it, but their position was becoming desperate. Sevastopol was shot at point-blank range, there were no more safe places in it. The day after Pirogov's departure, the cannonball tore apart his house on Ekaterininskaya Street. On June 28, Admiral Pavel Nakhimov.
In August, the Russian army made a last desperate attempt to break through to the city, but was defeated on the Chernaya River. On August 27, the French captured Malakhov Kurgan, a key point of the Sevastopol defense. Further confrontation was pointless, and the commander of the Russian army, Prince Mikhail Gorchakov gave the order that same night to withdraw the defenders from the attack. Together with the soldiers, doctors and nurses left.
In September, Pirogov returned to the Crimea, where he immediately set to work: many wounded were waiting for him, taken out of Sevastopol and somehow placed in tents. They were sent to Simferopol, but even there there was not enough space for them.
“I had to tirelessly complain, demand and write,” the surgeon himself later recalled. “It got me into trouble a few times. Some of my expressions in written requests turned out to be “inappropriate” or not polite enough. The head of the hospital administration, Mr. Ostrogradsky, showed himself especially touchy on this score.
After my repeated and vain requests to him that he supply us with firewood for heating our ice barracks and the sisters' quarters, Ostrogradsky ... complained about me to Prince Gorchakov, and as a result of this complaint, we did not receive firewood. For "impoliteness" Pirogov was reprimanded first from Gorchakov, and then from the new emperor Alexander II, but the surgeon's grievances no longer worried. The main thing was to accommodate the wounded, to save as many lives as possible.
After the fall of Sevastopol, the war ended. In March 1856, a peace was signed in Paris, according to which Russia received the Crimea back, but lost the Black Sea Fleet. At the same time, the losses of the coalition were much greater than the Russian ones (170 thousand against 140 thousand), the financial situation of the allies was also unenviable.
Doctor from Vinnitsa
In Russia, under the new emperor, a “thaw” began, which also captured Pirogov. Having retired from the Medico-Surgical Academy, he unexpectedly took up pedagogy and education problems for everyone. His article “Questions of Life”, published in 1856, aroused such interest (even the Decembrists in Siberian exile read it) that the surgeon was offered the post of trustee of the Odessa educational district, from where he was then transferred to Kyiv.
Nicholas Church-tomb of N.I. Pirogov in Vinnitsa
Pirogov's articles on universal equality, human rights, the accessibility of science and education for all classes were loudly praised by the liberal public. But suddenly Nikolai Ivanovich "pierced": during a discussion about the admissibility of corporal punishment at school, he publicly approved the use of rods. The liberals immediately ostracized the former favorite, and Pirogov, who was taking it hard, resigned. He retired to his estate Cherry near Vinnitsa, but the quiet landlord life quickly bored him.
In 1862 he went to Heidelberg as the head of a group of Russian scientists who were preparing to defend their thesis. Many famous natural scientists owe their careers to him, including Ilya Mechnikov, whom Pirogov helped not only with advice, but also with money. An interesting episode. Mechnikov's brother Leo, colleague Giuseppe Garibaldi, asked the surgeon to examine the famous revolutionary, who was wounded in the leg in battle with the royal army. Not a single doctor found a bullet in the wound - only Pirogov succeeded, saving Garibaldi's leg, and possibly his life.
In 1870, the Society for the Care of the Wounded and Sick Soldiers (soon it was renamed the Russian Red Cross Society) seconded him to the theater of operations: the Franco-Prussian War began. In 1877, when Pirogov was already 67 years old, Alexander II himself remembered him and asked him to go to Bulgaria, where there was a war with the Turks.
Remembering the sad Crimean experience, the doctor agreed only on the condition that he be given complete freedom of action. In three months, he traveled 700 km in a sleigh and in a cart, visiting 11 military hospitals and 10 infirmaries. Everywhere, Pirogov organized care and treatment for the wounded, put things in order with supplies, performed operations not only on Russian soldiers and officers, but also on local residents. One of the largest hospitals in Bulgaria still bears his name.
In May 1881, the 50th anniversary of Pirogov's activity "in the field of education, science and citizenship" was solemnly celebrated in Moscow. The hero of the day did not want to listen to eulogies, but his wife persuaded him to go at least to be examined by colleagues: a few months before that, an ulcer had appeared on his tongue, which did not heal in any way.
Outstanding Surgeon Nikolai Sklifosovsky, who examined Pirogov, diagnosed him with cancer of the upper jaw. He insisted on an urgent operation, but Pirogov refused in dismay and went to Vienna to his student, the famous doctor Theodor Billroth. He was immediately convinced that Sklifosovsky was right, but, seeing that the disease had gone too far, he told the teacher that there was no malignant tumor. Reassured, Pirogov returned to his estate, where he received patients and wrote his memoirs.
He worked on "The Diary of an Old Doctor" until his last days. Once he wrote there in his illegible, typically medical handwriting:
“Oh, hurry, hurry! Bad, bad! So, perhaps, I will not have time to describe even half of St. Petersburg life.
Sarcophagus with the coffin of N.I. Pirogov in the crypt
The doctor's will came as a surprise to everyone: he ordered his body to be embalmed and put in the family crypt. For a convinced Christian, as he became at the end of his life, such a desire was rather unusual. In this regard, even a version appeared that Nikolai Ivanovich hoped for future medical successes that would allow him to be resurrected someday.
His student David Vyvodtsev performed the embalming perfectly, and Pirogov's body is still resting in the mausoleum church of the former Cherry estate. There are monuments to the famous Russian surgeon in Moscow, in Vinnitsa, in Tartu and, of course, in Sevastopol - the city with which his fame is forever connected.
Vadim Erlikhman, Candidate of Historical Sciences
